Posts tagged Falcon9

Just because the Google Lunar Xprize is hotly contested doesn't mean that the competitors always have to be at each other's throats. Astrobotic and Hakuto have announced a partnership that will have Hakuto's rovers (Moonraker and Tetris) "piggyback" on Astrobotic's lander when it hopefully reaches...

SpaceX has good and bad news for you space lovers. The good news is that a Falcon 9 rocket has finally launched the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite or DSCOVR, which has been waiting for years in storage. Bad news is that the stormy weather forced the company to abandon its plans to land t...

SpaceX and the US Air Force have reached an agreement regarding a lawsuit filed by the former, but really, it's more of a victory for Elon Musk's company. What lawsuit, you ask? It's the one the commercial space company filed against the Air Force for not giving it a chance to bid for rocket launc...

Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you'll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read.
Breaking Down the Oscar Nominations: What the Hell Happened to 'Selma'?
by...

Elon Musk has just tweeted the first photos of the Falcon 9's "close but no cigar" hard barge landing to fellow rocket enthusiast and Oculus VR evangelist John Carmack. After saying the frames were "kinda begging to be released," he tweeted out four of them, amusingly recounting the progress of th...

"Close, but no cigar." That was how SpaceX founder Elon Musk described his company's first attempt at landing the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage on a barge in the middle of the ocean. To be clear, it wasn't a complete disaster: the first stage didn't disintegrate or crash into the water, but it did...

Very soon at around 6:20 4:47 AM EST today SpaceX will launch one its mighty Falcon 9 rockets carrying a Dragon capsule, weather permitting. "Big deal!" you may well say. "What's another rocket launch?" We're sure you're not that jaded (they're all amazing) but this one is pretty special. After th...

SpaceX's next test flight hopes to land one of its Falcon 9 rockets on a platform -- in one piece. The company puts the odds of success at around 50 percent "at best" but it's apparently a major step towards reusable space rockets - and cheaper trips to space. While it's already been able to demo ...

SpaceX's reusable rockets already have a few tricks up their metal sleeves, but it looks like they're getting at least a couple more. Elon Musk has revealed that his company is testing new technologies that will assist future Falcon 9 launches, including "X-wing style" control fins and a drone shi...

NASA wants to refine the ability of future spacecraft to land on Mars, since they'll have to ferry humans and other large payloads to the red planet. To that end, the agency has teamed up with SpaceX to record thermal camera footage of the Falcon 9 rocket as its first stage detaches and burns thro...

No one ever said rebooting spaceflight was going to be easy. The SpaceX team might know that better than anyone, especially on a night like this: one of the company's experimental F9R rockets malfunctioned in a test flight over McGregor, Texas and automatically aborted by self-destructing. Thankfu...

Back in mid-July, one of SpaceX's two-stage Falcon 9 rockets blasted off from Cape Canaveral to deposit a series of 6 Orbcomm satellites in low earth orbit. In case you're not terribly familiar with how these things work, it's the rocket's first stage (and its 9 Merlin 1C engines) that does most o...

Before most of us here in the States woke from last night's slumber, Elon Musk's outfit launched a rocket into space. The SpaceX Falcon 9 blazed across the sky from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 4AM ET, carrying an AsiaSat 8 satellite to deploy into orbit. Liftoff came just hours after the announceme...

SpaceX has been launching rockets in Florida or California for quite some time, but Texas will likely see most of the action once the company finishes building its new spaceport in Cameron County. While SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hasn't made an official announcement yet, a Florida official (who's unders...

After many "Grasshopper" tests, SpaceX's first real try at launching a reusable rocket will attempt flight again in just a few minutes -- watch the live stream here or embedded after the break. Scrubbed due to a helium leak a couple of days ago, the Falcon 9 rocket is once again facing gloomy skie...

Haste makes waste, and you have to move awfully fast to break out of Earth's atmosphere. After today, however, space travel might be a tad more sustainable. SpaceX is testing a new, reusable version of its Falcon 9 rocket today. The test is tacked on to the company's regularly scheduled cargo miss...

While most of the news about SpaceX has surrounded the Grasshopper lately, the firm has been plugging away at its Falcon rocket, too. This just-launched Falcon 9 (dubbed version 1.1) boasts 60 percent more powerful engines, longer fuel tanks and according to the Global Post, other new features tha...

We've been watching as the SpaceX Grasshopper's leap has grown higher and higher with each successive launch (and landing!), and the rocket's flights never fail to impress. The reusable spacecraft's latest test is no exception: this time, the 'hopper sailed past its previous 840 feet record, stopp...

Didn't get enough of the Dragon capsule launch this week? Good news, because after a day's delay due to (now remedied, according to NASA and SpaceX) faults with three clusters of its Draco thrusters, the capsule is set to be grappled by the International Space Station at 6:31AM ET on March 3rd (to...

SpaceX vehicles have proved themselves thus far to be highly capable cargo-toters for hungry astronauts aboard the ISS, and now the company's Falcon rockets have chalked up a couple of US Air Force missions, too. They'll participate in the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, launchin...